


Fish

by Ghostwood



Category: Hermitcraft RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Merpeople, being struck by lightning, i might make more works that would be connected to this one, uhhhh yea basically this is an intro sorta fic to a mer!grian au, was tempted to make the title 'cod boy' but the title is just the inktober prompt instead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:49:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26946235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghostwood/pseuds/Ghostwood
Summary: Grian goes out searching for buried treasure. A storm happens, and things get weird.(Mer!AU)
Relationships: Charles | Grian & Xisumavoid
Comments: 20
Kudos: 128





	Fish

The sky was grey, and sheets of rain fell over the ocean’s churning mass. Grian was flying above the waves, soaked through and with a map clutched in one hand, fluttering in the wind. He squinted at the paper, trying to angle it so that he could see the image on it. He was pretty sure he was close to his destination, now. Looking up, he could see the vague shape of an island through the rain. Bingo.

Hunting for buried treasure in the midst of a storm maybe wasn't the best idea, but Grian had already set out to do it when the sky had begun to cloud over, and he didn't want to have to head back when he was already halfway there. Besides, the worst that could come of it was getting a bit wet. Or, well, soaked. But that was fine, he'd just warm up once he got back to base.

Thunder rumbled in the distance as Grian skidded down onto the island, pulling out his shovel as he did. He turned his back to the wind and looked at the map again, squinting at the X on the paper. After moving a few steps left and then back, he shoved the map back into his pack and started digging down in the sand. 

Thanks to his diamond shovel, it was hardly a few seconds before there was a thunk as he hit the chest. Smiling gleefully, he opened the chest to find emeralds, diamonds, and some other goodies- including the Heart of the Sea. He scooped them all into his pack, but held onto the Heart a moment longer. 

Its prismatic surface held a warbling reflection of the lightning in the distance, and it seemed to thrum with power in his grip. Grian examined it for a moment more- it really was a beautiful object. It was a shame it had to be covered in nautilus shells to work as a conduit- nautilus shells were a fair amount less pretty. 

Grian pulled up his pack again to put away the Heart, but a strange feeling made him pause. The Heart was nearly vibrating now, and the hair on his arms stood on end as a crackling sound popped in the air around him. Looking around, confused and panicked, Grian realized what was happening just too late. 

Lightning raced down from the sky, striking him, and then all Grian could see was bright, overwhelming light. 

The electricity felt like a fissure down his spine, buzzing in all his limbs and  _ hurting _ , it hurt like his blood was on fire.

Distantly, Grian could almost swear he felt the hand in which he still held the Heart of the Sea jolt and shiver with some separate power before his consciousness was ripped away from him.

\----

Grian’s limbs felt leaden and sore when he began to stir. His head buzzed with a headache, and he winced at the early morning sunlight dancing over him when he opened his eyes. He laid on his stomach, stiff and uncomfortable with his cheek pressed onto the damp beach. His jumper was stiff from the rain and scratchy from the sand. Oh, that’s right. He was on an island. Treasure hunting, the Heart of the Sea, the lightning strike… 

Well, at least the storm was over. Grian figured it was about time to head back to base and maybe take a nice, long nap. He winced as he moved his arms. Maybe some golden carrots were in order then, too. Bracing his hands on the ground to stand up, he was stopped by the weirdest feeling. His legs weren’t responding the way they usually did, and Grian momentarily panicked. Had he fallen weirdly? Did the lightning do something? But as he rolled onto his back and sat up to look at his legs, he froze, brain stuttering to a stop. 

For a moment he couldn’t quite comprehend what he was seeing. The thing, whatever he was looking at, wasn’t his legs. The brown-patterned limb twitched unconsciously. 

“What - are you SERIOUS?” Grian fumed as he flopped back onto the sand, arms crossed. He squeezed his eyes shut and took a few careful breaths before sitting up and looking again. Right. Not a dream. 

Where his legs used to be now sat a huge fish’s tail. A merperson’s tail, he supposed. The rows of fins flexed when he thought about it. 

A merperson.  _ A merperson _ . And his tail - he recognized those scales. He was a  _ cod _ out of all fish. Of course. 

Grian reached down to touch his new tail when he noticed something else - there were patches of scales on his forearms now, too. More scales appeared closer to his fingertips, where now he found webbed digits with sharp claws on each tip. Okay.

This was all so much to be dealing with so early in the morning. Grian put his head in his hands and sighed heavily. His claws pricked at his temples. How had this even happened? He was sure this wasn’t something he’d ever heard about before. 

It must have happened because of the lightning strike though, right? It would make sense. That was the main thing that happened before he passed out. But what else? He had been struck by lightning before - it hurt like hell, but it had definitely never turned him into a merperson. So what… 

Grian lifted his gaze to the beach around him. A few feet away lay the shattered remains of what must have been the Heart of the Sea. The orb looked glassy and clear, no longer a deep, shifting ocean blue, and it lay in several cracked pieces. Well. It must have been that, then. An ocean orb being struck by lightning and causing some sort of mer transformation? It made sense, in the way that magic does. 

Near the remains of the Heart lay his shovel and some emeralds from the treasure chest, fallen from the night before. Grian braced himself and ungracefully flopped forwards on the beach to reach his stuff. Grabbing everything - and the pieces of the Heart, too, for good measure - Grian tucked them all away in his pack, along with his elytra, since there was no way he was getting off the ground right now. He turned and looked out over the ocean in the direction he came, shielding his eyes with a hand against the sun. It was starting to drift away from being morning, and he was getting awfully hot here on the sand. His scales itched irritatingly. He thinks now would be a good time to get in the water.

Digging his hands into the sand and wiggling his new tail against the ground, Grian slowly dragged himself to the shore. Lazy waves moved in and out as he approached, but one wave rose up bigger and farther than the rest, washing straight towards Grian’s face. He closed his eyes and held his breath, bracing for a cold slap of water to the face, which he soon received. To his surprise, though, it was more refreshing than cold, honestly. He didn’t realize how sweltering it had been before, but now that he felt the water on his face, he needed the temperature adjustment immensely. 

He pulled himself further into the water, hating how long it took for him to push past the waves on the edge of the shoreline. As soon as he reached a depth where he could sort-of begin to swim, he dunked his head underwater, keeping his eyes open as he did. Merpeople could see underwater, right?

And,  _ oh _ , could they ever! With his entire head submerged, Grian felt a rush of energy as he looked around. He could see farther than he ever had underwater before. Not far away, he could see vibrant, glowing corals and sponges, prismatic colored fishes darting among them. A sea turtle glided by, fins bobbing gracefully. 

And then, another feeling. Grian lifted a hand to his neck. Something shifted there where it hadn’t before, and he resurfaced to take some deep breaths to calm down again. With a slight tremor, his hand felt several faint lines in the side of his neck - mirrored on the other side as well. He could guess that these must be gills. Grian shuddered. He was starting to like this transformation even less. The tail was a lot, but his method of breathing being altered too? It was pretty scary. At least it seemed he could breath above water, too. 

Grian ducked back under the water. Hesitantly, and with a hand still resting lightly over his newfound gills, he slowly let them open, pulling in water. Breathing through gills was an incredibly weird feeling to get used to, Grian thought as he released the remaining air in his lungs, watching it bubble to the surface. Hopefully he wouldn’t have to be used to it for long though. Surely one of the hermits would know a way to fix this? Maybe Xisuma could do one of his fancy commands, or maybe Scar, with his recently becoming a wizard and all, would know of some magical reverse card - type thing. 

In any case, Grian was heading back to Hermitville. The shopping district, most likely. It had the most hermits around in the same place, usually, and was the closest place that he knew of right now. He pulled out his communicator, and paused, idly tapping the side of it with a claw. Who to message? Probably Xisuma, first. He’d know what to do. He didn’t want to send out a message to all the hermits yet - chances were that this could be fixed fairly quickly, and Grian would rather sort everything out first than make everyone concerned for him in the meantime. Or, fascinated by the change. He didn’t think he could take all that attention on him at once.

After sending a quick message to X asking him to meet him at the shore of the shopping district, Grian tucked away his communicator again and set off with one strong beat of his tail.

He swam a lot faster than he thought he might - gliding through the water easily. It was almost like flying, he thought, as he dove into various loops and spins in the water. Though his movements had started rough and uncoordinated when he first began to swim, he was quickly getting the hang of it, ducking under stone arches and around coral structures with relative ease. 

After swimming for a while longer, (and getting distracted by nearly every sea creature he passed,) Grian was nearing the shopping district. He pulled out his communicator again, checking Xisuma’s affirmation that he would come before putting it away again. 

He paused, momentarily, one hand on the edge of the island and still submerged underwater. He hoped Xisuma wouldn’t freak out. 

Grian surfaced, pulling himself up so that he could cross his arms on the land above the water, but it turned into an aborted movement as his lungs protested the sudden transition from water to air. His first breath turned to hacking, and he could feel seawater trickling down his neck. Oh, god, he hoped Xisuma wasn’t already nearby, that would be kind of embarrassi-

“Wh-... Grian??”

Oh. Great.

Grian tucked his face into his elbow as he coughed a bit more, and held up a finger to the direction Xisuma’s voice came from as a “one moment” gesture. After a few more seconds of coughing up water, Grian cleared his throat and looked up to see Xisuma kneeled close to him, hands slightly raised like he was going to try to help him somehow. 

“Hey, Xisuma, what’s up?” Grian went for false casual, which was slightly ruined by the weird, scratchy quality his voice had apparently developed.

“Grian, what - what happened?! What do you…” Grian could see X’s eyes behind his helmet flicking over his new features. He looked shocked, and concerned. Not good.

“Yeah, uh… Here, lemme just - lemme just show you the whole thing,” Xisuma moved back as Grian pulled himself fully out of the water, showing off his full mer tail. Xisuma’s eyes, somehow, got wider. Yikes, he was going to become Keralis at this rate. “So… First question - can you change me back?”

X shook out of his stunned stupor after a moment, refocusing his gaze on Grian’s face. “I - Wow, this is… This is new, I’ve never seen anything like this happen before, Grian, hold on,” Xisuma pulled up a box of code in front of himself, typing and scrolling through rows and rows of data that Grian couldn’t hope to understand. He stopped at one page in particular, reading through it intently, and then wincing slightly. Grian tilted his head in a questioning look. “There’s… Okay, there’s definitely some changed data here, but, it’s going to take me some time to go through it and change stuff back. I don’t want to risk anything going wrong, and the alterations are so spread out in the code that I need to be careful if I remove anything so that it won’t do anything weird to you. Could take a few days, or longer.” He turned his gaze back to Grian, closing the code. “I  _ will _ figure out a way to turn you back, it’s just going to take awhile.” 

Grian nodded, “Thank you, X.” He said it with such surety, Grian believed him beyond a doubt. Still, though, what was he going to do in the meantime? There was no way he could go back to his base like  _ this _ . 

Xisuma, as if reading his mind, continued, “You know, if you’re comfortable with it, I’m sure the other hermits would be willing to help you get around until we can get you turned back. Any one of us would be willing to help you out if you need it, Grian, so don’t be afraid to ask.”

Before Grian could reply, and as if talking about other hermits summoned him, Grian heard a distant exclamation and the sound of someone running up to the two of them. 

“Grian, you -  _ what! _ ” Mumbo froze, several feet away, staring at Grian’s tail. Grian would’ve laughed at the utterly confused look on his face if he weren’t currently grappling with the looming dread of having to deal with the tail thing for more than a day.

The corner of Grian’s mouth ticked up, instead. “Uh - Hey Mumbo.” Grian sighed internally. This was going to be a long week.

**Author's Note:**

> heyyyy, thanks for reading! <3  
> this is my first fanfiction, so go easy on me haha
> 
> if i have the time i kinda want to add more to this, maybe several small interconnected stories. what do yall think? 
> 
> anyways, thanks again for reading, have a nice day! <33


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